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The Re-emergence of a Hidden Culture in America’s Southwest

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The award-winning novel, Hidden Star, by Corinne Brown, the recent recipient of the New Mexico/Arizona Book Award in Historical Fiction and the Latino Literacy Award for the same category, explores this remarkable global phenomenon, the confirmation of hidden Jewish life in Catholic communities around the world, but especially in New Mexico.

Corinne Brown takes you on a journey of spiritual and ethnic discovery while examining questions of heritage, identify and belief.The Jewish communities of Spain and Portugal, once the largest in Europe, were forced to convert to Christianity in the 14th and 15th centuries. Many fled to the New World, settling in New Spain (including the Southwest and other regions), in Mexico and in Central and South America, hiding their Jewish past. Scholars around the world continue to unearth fascinating documentation on the dispersion of these peoples who, over centuries, assimilated into Catholic communities until their 20th century emergence and growing awareness of Sephardic Jewish ancestry. More importantly, many are coming to terms with their ancestral past and returning to their faith of old – an international spiritual awakening. Corinne Brown is also the author of Hidden Star, a historical novel which explores an awakening to a new reality , revealing a hidden past that has shaped a family's history for centuries.